Philadelphia’s ‘With Love’ campaign goes to the next phase.

Philadelphia is renewing a romance with leisure travelers that it began last year.

Last summer’s “With Love” marketing campaign used the icon XOXO to showcase 85 different “love letters” to the region on billboards, mass-transit and other venues.  Last week  the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) launched its 2010 $1.7 million tourism marketing campaign with 25 new With Love, Philadelphia XOXO™ ads, bringing the total to 115 personalized love letters addressed to travelers with all sorts of interests. Along with a winter TV commercial, the new ads will begin appearing immediately in publications such as People, Entertainment Weekly and Real Simple.

This time the campaign is focusing on 10 selling points, including culture, dining, fashion and shopping, interesting neighborhoods, “authenticity,” sports, hotels, the outdoors and “only in Philadelphia” attractions. The centerpiece of the campaign,  is a new Web site with an address, that is far more colloquial — and thus more likely to be typed into search engines — than its predecessor, gophila.com.

The tourism organization worked with a Web design company in Philadelphia, on the new site, which has a section (visitphilly.com/withlove) that includes information on coming seasonal events and hotel package deals as well as features like a self-service postcard generator. Moreover, the second installment the campaign also has more of a presence in the social media, including Facebook and Twitter.

The campaign is indicative of efforts being made by major travel destinations as the cash crunch among consumers enters its third winter. Since a considerable amount of travel represents discretionary purchases that can be put off, the need to stimulate demand remains high.